Hi. Wo, hold on here! Ok, let me explain what we are doing with Gnome to clarify things. First, the gtk tool kit, from which Gnome is written in, is being rewritten so that anyone using the standard controls, widgets, etc will build accessible apps from the get go. Gnome has also been upgraded with speech hooks that will tell the screen reader what is being presented. Finally, Sun will be introducing something like the Java Access bridge so that Gnopernicus can handle Java applications under Linux. Does this clear things up? ----- Original Message ----- From: Charles Crawford <ccrawford@xxxxxxx> To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 2:27 PM Subject: Re: Needs educating: Message from Linux (fwd) > Thanks. I understand what you are saying. Does this mean that > there would not be a fix for X-Windows like the MSAA in Windows? Would we > need some kind of major off-screen model? > > -- charlie Crawford. > > At 11:09 AM 1/22/02 -0700, you wrote: > >Actually, being familiar with X myself, I'll answer this one. > > > >Xwindows, is a misnomer, in reality, it's just an X server, and clients. The > >server draws to the screen, and sends user input to the clients. The clients > >are the applications, the clients are usually on the same machine as the > >server, but they don't have to be. > > > >X itself is nothing more than a network protocol for sending graphic data to > >an X workstation, the X protocol has no provisions for button, text box, or > >any widgets for that matter, it has: line, circle, filled circle, rectangle, > >filled rectangle, pixmap, etc... > > > >X also sends keyboard input and mouse click locations to the applications > >that own the windows they occur in. Beyond that, X's only other capability > >is to send text glyphs (rendered in a given font) back to applications that > >request them. > > > >As for widgets, and controls, and a nice unified API for writing programs, > >you need a "toolkit library". What's a toolkit library you ask? A better > >question might be "what isn't a toolkit library?" > >First of all, there are a lot of toolkit libraries out there, some are very > >simple (Athena) while some have a full-blown callback API and can be adjusted > >with themes (GTK, GTK+) and some are object-oriented C++ based APIs (QT). > >They all basically do the same thing, provide functions/objects/structures to > >the application to draw typical GUI widgets, and send draw requests to the X > >server. Here's the hairy part, each toolkit has its own look and feel, has > >its own API, has its own conventions, and basically has its own everything. > > > >There's also the seperate window manager, which is simply another X client > >which registers a few special functions with the X server so it can get the > >location and owner of each window and add decorations and task switching > >behavior. Some (most) window managers do more than this, but they all do at > >least this. > > > >Windows, on the other had, has the equivalent of the toolkit library and > >window manager built into the kernel (sort of) and most applications either > >use that, or a custom one that is very similar to it. > > > >I'm sure this is incomplete, but I've already been wracking my brain for an > >hour over it, so I'll close here, feel free to ask questions or tell me about > >parts that are unclear. > > > Good to see you on this list. I wonder if there are some folks > > out there > > > familiar with XWindows to share the kind of navigation that goes on with > > > it? I have no idea. Is it the same icons and rdio buttons and all of > > > tht? How is it different than windows and how much more easy would access > > > be to develop in the XWindows environment? These are important questions > > > to your point I imagine. > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Speakup mailing list > >Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup >
